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Monday, July 7, 2014

Following up my 21st with a 1st

I celebrated my 21st birthday on Saturday (thanks to all those who wished me a happy birthday btw), and I decided to take some of my birthday money over to my LCS. I was debating on spending the money on a Kershaw auto, but I decided to buy my very first hobby box.

Nothing was really jumping out at me, but I decided to go with a box of 2014 Donruss. In hindsight, I probably would have enjoyed ripping something else, but the box turned out fine.

Each box supposedly comes with two autos and one relic. Every box also comes with a box topper, which I find pretty gnarly.

Especially, since this is the very first thing I pulled.

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I cropped it to save some room, but I managed to pull a David Wright autographed box topper. That's a pretty damn good way to start off a box. This was immediately listed on eBay, as it should sell for about the same price as the box.

I'll get to my other three hits (the boxtopper was a bonus) shortly, but let's first take a look at some of the #'d cards from within.

There is a pretty good mix of teams, with some solid players to boot. The Gordon refractor will probably be heading over to Greg, but the others are up for grabs.

This may be the best #'d card to come out of the box. It is limited to just 99 copies, so I threw it on eBay for a little more than it should sell for to see if anyone bites. It does not appear like any have sold yet, so that may benefit me.

The Mariano card may have been the "best" card in a general sense, but this Zack Greinke card was my favorite. Limited to just 263 copies, I somehow managed with card number 1. Definitely a first for me, so it was just an added bonus at the end of an awesome box.

The base cards in Donruss aren't anything special, but I certainly dig the inserts. The "Power Plus" cards may just be on my list for Top Insert of the Year, if there was such a thing. Coupled with a sweet looking card of Puig exploding out of a brick wall, I have some sweet new additions to my Puig binder.

We finally move into the autos with two guys on the opposite ends of the spectrum.

Miguel Sano is a promising young prospect, actually ranked #3 overall by MLB, but recently underwent Tommy John surgery. The procedure is rare for position players, but the time it takes to recover is much shorther than that of a pitcher. I doubt San returns in 2014, but he should rake in the Twins system come 2015.

Horton, on the other hand, retired in 1980 after an illustrious career with 6 different organizations, primarily the Detroit Tigers. Horton was a 4x All-Star, World Series Champion, 1979 AL Comback Player of the Year, and had his number 23 retired by the Tigers in 2000.

Pretty solid autos if you ask me.

To top it all off, I pulled a nice relic of the reigning NL MVP. I was hoping for a multi-colored patch, as my LCS owner had a few laying around his shop. However, I ended up with just a plain gray swatch, but I'm not complaining.

At the end of the day, the David Wright Box Topper basically made me my money back on the box. I managed to pull quite a few cards that I enjoyed, and even more that other will appreciate. Most everything shown above has been added to my Trade Bait page, so be sure to head over if you are looking to deal.